Sweet Treat: iRewardChart

Here's another cool thing for those of you with children:  A new app my mom showed me.  I have an iPhone, she was using her Kindle so I guess that means Droid has it.  Anyway it's the iRewardChart app.  It's like a virtual chore chart and lets you or the kids keep track of what they've done by earning stars or taking them away.  You can set goals and prizes.  Use it for allowances and it's a good way to keep them motivated for doing what they are told and for good behavior.  I think things like this are very helpful.  One day I'll do a post on the chore chart I made on a huge poster board for my son last year.  Was very helpful.

Let's Eat: Chicken Piccata

I have a recipe that is super-quick and super-easy to make and will make you feel like an Italian chef and will impress everyone!  Chicken Piccata is unbelievably easy to make.  Bear with me, I've stated before that I'm not good with measuring unless it's baking.  I just use my tastebuds to know when enough is enough or not enough.  Gotta taste good, right?  So here's what you need:  boneless/skinless chicken breasts, flour, seasonings of your choice, angel hair pasta, chicken broth, capers, garlic, 2 lemons, parsley, olive oil, and butter.

You have to beat your chicken with a meat tenderizer mallet to flatten it out.  Remember to disinfect your counter of all the chicken juice afterward.  Ugh, can't stand a nasty-ass cook. Then season it how you want and coat it with flour.

Now during this time you will have had your chicken broth, olive oil, butter, and lemon juice heating up in a big pan with capers and garlic.  Squeeze some lemon juice (to taste) in the pan and cut a few thin lemon slices in there (makes it look like you really know how to throw down).  Keep playing with the mixture of these ingredients until you get it to your liking.  Always go by taste and not measurements.  After all, it's more important that it tastes good, than how much of whatever you use.  I guess.  I mean, I'm no chef.  I just like to cook.  

Put your chicken in the pan to cook and make sure it's done! You can be boiling your angel hair pasta while all this is going on so when your chicken is done you can just set it on top of your pasta and pour the sauce over the noodles.  Yay!  You can put some parsley and Parmesan on top if you wish. 

You should totally make this for a date and make a dessert to serve afterward.  Dim the lights, burn some candles, all that! Lol :) 

Enjoy!  Next time I make this I will try to pay attention to what I do so that I can have some rough measurements.

Making Fondant with a 5-Year-Old

Making fondant with a 5-year-old...and the mess wasn't his fault!

So I’ve been wanting to learn to make fondant for quite a while now.  Everything I’ve read about it says it’s super hard to make, but that the pre-made stuff tastes like crap.  So what the hell are you supposed to do?  Anyway, I typically don’t like pre-made stuff.   I like to know how to make things from scratch and tweak them so they fit my tastes.  I found a recipe on Pinterest (which by the way, IMO, is THEE BEST!) for marshmallow fondant.  It said that marshmallow fondant was way easy and that there was no way you could mess it up.  Sounded great for a first attempt so I gave it a shot, with my trusty assistant J  Here’s what we used:  a bag of powdered sugar, a bag of marshmallows, some Crisco, and a few teaspoons of water.  And you need a Pyrex bowl, or something else that will be able to be microwaved.

By the way, check my new apron:

Okay, I let my son pour the marshmallows into the bowl.  And I let him eat a couple, too.

Then we added a couple teaspoons of water.  We melted it in the microwave.  It takes about two-and-a-half minutes total to melt (if I remember correctly) but we stopped it about every twenty or thirty seconds to check it and stir a little. 

When it was all melted we added ¾ of the bag of powdered sugar.  The recipe I had said to pour it on top, but I think the next time I try this, I’m going to stir it in a little bit before dumping it on the counter which is the next step. 

The next several minutes will have you in a panic.  I could have sworn that we forgot something or left something out.  Like a dummy, I didn’t print it out or have my laptop up and was instead looking at my phone.  But you get so incredibly sticky with the next step that you can barely pull your fingers apart, let alone grab your phone.  Hence, no pics from this stage.  Sorry!  Anyway, slowly but surely it all came together.  The Crisco is for greasing your hands and your working surface and trust me you want them extra greasy!  Add in a little more powdered sugar, too.  It will eventually come into the texture it is supposed to be.  Then you can dye it.  I have gel food coloring and it takes a while to work it in there for an even color and not a marble-y looking thing.  Keep your hands greased and when you put it up, grease the lump of fondant and the plastic wrap you’ll store it in until you are ready to use it.  Grease your rolling pin and your surface when you roll it out.  Once it’s flat you can lay it on top of your cake.

Trim the excess.

Make something out of the leftover fondant.  We did this Valentine's Day weekend so we made a pink cake and put hearts on it.

Success!  Tastes sweet, like marshmallows.  I think my next attempt will be much better and less messy. And now I’m dying to try to make real fondant.  So I survived a completely sticky mess with my 5-year-old helper.  And when I say sticky, I mean sticky.  I couldn’t even exaggerate how sticky it really gets.  I used a caulk scraper to remove the aftermath from my counter and the chair my son was standing in.  But we had a great time making it and I would totally suggest it for an afternoon project.  We made a strawberry cake from scratch that morning to put it on.  Speaking of strawberry cake, do you have a recipe for a from-scratch strawberry cake?  Because I didn’t enjoy this one as much as I should have and I have found that it’s hard to find a from scratch strawberry cake recipe.  Let me know!

Let's Eat

I’m a single mother and I receive no child support. I “help people” for a living which means I don’t make a lot of money.  I am now an expert grocery shopper.  I’m not crazy and obsessed like those people on the extreme couponing shows, but I know my way around a bargain.  Inexpensive recipes can keep meal time interesting for picky eaters, which is important.  From time to time, I’ll share a few cheap-to-make recipes that I’ve had and some that I’ve come up with myself.  Here’s the first one (thought up by me, when I had to rely on what was in the pantry and freezer).  It doesn’t have a title; I’ll have to think of what to call it.  Anyhoo, here it is:

1 pound of ground beef or ground turkey

Some egg noodles—I’m not good at measurements so just decide how much you need.  I used one half of a bag

1 can of tomatoes, okra, and corn (like this: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Margaret-Holmes-Tomatoes-Okra-and-Corn-14.5-oz/10451145)

Shredded cheese

Season and brown the meat and drain the fat.  While you are doing this, cook the egg noodles and strain them when they are done.  After you drain the fat from the meat, add the tomatoes, corn, and okra (with the liquid).  Then, add the cook egg noodles to the pan and mix it all together!  Add the seasonings of your choice.  (I hate unseasoned, bland food). Stir in some shredded cheese and heat it on low for a minute to melt the cheese.  Yum!  

Please excuse me...

Where are my manners?  I just started writing all willy-nilly without even introducing myself.  I'm tastezlikecandy and this is my humble little blog.  I created this account so that I could get back into writing.  Over the last several years, two things I really used to enjoy--reading (for pleasure) and writing--have taken a backseat to real life.  As a matter of fact, several things that I used to enjoy took a backseat to "real life" and now I'm slowly getting them back.  As I write more, and hopefully you'll keep reading more, you'll understand why.

Anyway, I'm a twenty-something single mom with great friends, great family, and working in a field I enjoy.  I plan to use this blog to talk about whatever pops into my head, so don't look for too much continuity :).  I'll talk about myself, my kid, my job, my frustrations, my past, and occasionally hop up on my soapbox to talk about the things I feel most strongly about.  I hope you connect with me on here.  I'm also on Twitter: @tastezlikecandy.

Decorating My House

Something I’m working on right now (one of my million unfinished projects) is decorating my house. Fun, you say. Yeah, but I’m really tardy. I’ve been a homeowner for a year now. I still have unpacked boxes and the feng shui just ain’t there. I hadn’t decided what I wanted to do and I didn’t want to purchase all of my furniture and then have to move it back out once I decided to paint. So the kitchen and living room have been painted, but aren’t completely decorated, and my bedroom, as well as the bathrooms, is still bare. The guest bedroom is a whole ‘nother story. It’s more like a storage unit at this point. It stays closed so I’m saving that for last. T’s bedroom looks good…I just need to have a few things framed that I painted for him and probably rearrange the furniture since his toys are taking over the room and spilling out into the rest of the house like The Blob. I think that’s going to be something else for me to “blog” about. Haha, I put that in quotes because it’s not like I “blog” on a regular basis. I can’t even call myself a “blogger”. I’m not quite sure that anyone is even ever going to read this. But, I will show you my decorating skills on a budget. I furnished my house for the low and everything was extra cheap. I’ll have to take some pictures of some of the things that I got. I’m all about recycling/reusing/repurposing…all that. Building off of what you already have and getting new pieces to bring the room for life. That can sometimes put narrow your color choices, but that’s where your creativity comes in to pull it all together.